Chris Bourque feels the comfort is there and the offense will come

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DJ Bean
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January 25, 2013 @ 12:47 pm
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Chris Bourque is only three games into his Bruins career, and though neither he nor his line has made a ton of noise on the ice, he’s found Boston — the third NHL[1] stop of his career — to be an ideal fit.

“Every game I feel more and more comfortable,” he said. “Obviously getting the nerves out the first couple of games, playing in the Garden with a full house, there’s definitely a little bit of nerves and obviously in New York the other night, but I’m starting to settle in here and I’m starting to feel pretty good and hopefully just get better every day.”

Bourque said that it still feels “surreal” playing for the Bruins given that he grew up watching his father,Ray Bourque[2], carve out a Hall of Fame career with the B’s, but that’s to be expected.

“Every day that passes, you get kind of used to it a little bit more,” he said. “Seeing my dad’s picture all over the place, every time I see that it reminds that he was such a legend here, so it’s still a little bit different, but something that I’m going to have to get used to. It’s a lot of fun being around these guys, a great group of guys and a good hockey team.”

As for what he’s done on the ice, Bourque is looking for his first goal as a Bruin (he has one goal in 36 career NHL[3] games), but he’s been trusted with minutes on the third line, power play (he was on the ice forBrad Marchand[4]‘s power-play goal against the Rangers Wednesday) and shootout, as he was Boston’s third shooter against the Jets Monday. The confidence is there on Bourque’s part, and the faith is there on Claude Julien[5]‘s part.

“Chris Bourque is a great player, skilled guy,” Julien said after Friday’s morning skate. “I think he’s been an important part of our power play as far as giving us that left shot that we need right now. He’s been pretty decent there. I think he’s another guy that’s feeling his way through our hockey club. The one thing you want out of players that are coming in for the first time is that they don’t hurt your hockey club, and [he] hasn’t.”

The line of Chris Kelly[6] between Bourque and Rich Peverley[7]hasn’t been the Bruins’ strongest — they’ve produced no goals, while Bourque and Peverley have minus-2 ratings and Kelly is a minus-1 — but Bourque thinks the process of coming together has gone increasingly well.

“I think every game has gotten better,” he said. “Last game there were a lot of power plays and PKs. [Kelly and Peverley] kill penalties and me and Pevs are on the power play, so we didn’t play as much together as a line, but when we’re out there I feel like we’re creating some good energy. That’s part of the job as a third line is creating energy for the team and getting momentum. I think it’s been going pretty well so far.”

Bourque is also the third man in with a duo that’s plenty experienced with one another. Barring injuries and injury-related lineup shuffling, Kelly and Peverley have been linemates for the vast majority of their time in Boston since they were acquired days apart from one another prior to the 2011 trade deadline.

Both Kelly and Peverley spoke highly of Bourque’s work during training camp, but Bourque admitted that though he’s comfortable with his linemates, he’ll be comfortable over time.

“It always takes time to get chemistry,” he said. “It’s only been three games here. We haven’t had too much practice time either to get out there together, but I think every game we’ve gotten more and more chances. Against Winnipeg we had a couple off the rush there and the last game we were in their zone a couple of times. I think the goals will come, it’s just playing defense first and that kind of stuff. We’ve got to keep the puck out of our net in order to get it in there. We’ll just focus on the little things and the offense will come.”

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